A data communication system is arranged for communication of data between two or more entities such as user terminal equipment and/or other nodes associated with the system. The communication may comprise, for example, communication of voice, electronic mail (email) and text messages, multimedia content and so on. A communication system may provide data communication over a fixed line or wireless interface for user terminals or other nodes. An example of systems carrying wireless communication is the public land mobile network (PLMN). An example of the fixed line networks is the public switched telephone network (PSTN)
A communication system typically operates in accordance with a given standard or specification which sets out what the various elements of the system are permitted to do and how that should be achieved. For example, the standard or specification may define if the user, or more precisely, user equipment or terminal is provided with a circuit switched service or a packet switched service or both. Communication protocols and/or parameters which shall be used for the connection are also typically defined. For example, the manner how communication shall be implemented between the user equipment and the elements of the communication network is typically based on a predefined communication protocol. In other words, a specific set of “rules” on which the communication can be based on needs to be defined to enable communication by means of the communication system.
The communication systems may be provided with various different functions. These functions can be divided in different categories. A category comprises functions that relate to the actual carrying of the communication in the system. Another category can be seen as being formed by control or management functions such as the control of various services. The various functions of the communication systems may have been developed quite independently from each other and may use different protocols in different communication systems. In general terms, a communication system can be described by a model in which the functions of the system can be seen as divided in several hierarchically arranged function layers, such as a service layer, an application layer and a transport layer.
For example, in communication environments such as those based on the Internet Protocol (IP) or the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) or the current third generation (3G) communication network architectures it is assumed that various server entities are used for handling of provision of different communication services and other functions of the communication system. In such communication systems the communication connections may not be based on a “circuit” between the communicating nodes, but the messages may rather be transported as packets that are provided with an address.
Hence the name packet switched systems. The server entities and the user equipment may communicate with each other based on appropriate protocol providing such a connectionless operation.
The internet protocol (IP) is a layer 3 protocol that underlies the application layer in a layered communication system function model. The Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) in turn is an application-layer control protocol for creating, modifying and terminating sessions with one or more participants. A user connected to a SIP based communication system may communicate with various entities of the communication system based on standardised SIP messages.
The global Internet has proven to be a popular and wide spread data communication system for provision of different services for the users thereof. The services are typically provided by the so called Internet Service Providers (ISPs). In addition to provision of the communication services itself (i.e. the possibility to communicate via the system), content services such as different web sites are also provided. The content can have any form, such as various information, multimedia and so on.
One of the reasons why the Internet has become so popular is the possibility of the users to provide content that can then be viewed or otherwise used by other users. A widely used possibility for content creation is to use World Wide Web (WWW) content creation tools such as the Hypertext Preprocessor (PHP). The content creation tools have been successfully implemented in numerous web server platforms, and are used by numerous web sites in the Internet. The sites may use the tools to create for example dynamic web content.
The inventor has found that it could be advantageous if the existing WWW service tools could be used for creating services and/or other content for users of other communication environments that are based on other protocols than the HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP) of the WWW service. For example, users of a Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) based communication system might wish to create content and/or services for other users communicating via the SIP environment. A SIP service provider (e.g. an operator) may also wish to utilise the creativity of its user base in creating new services and other content, thereby making his service more attractive. This might also free the SIP service provider from the provision of a number of services and other content. Instead, the service provider might concentrate on to collectively provide a few basic, standard services required for the operation of the communication system. Running of powerful scripts on operator servers may also create some security concerns.